Johanna, maddeningly, did not respond.
“I heard you say it. Not making it up.”
“Oh, I believe you,” my mother sighed. “People say things. It doesn’t make them true. And there are plenty of things I haven’t seen fit to confide in my sister. We were never close, you know. And I was never close to my brother, either. They both saw me as utterly irrelevant to their lives, which wasn’t a great start.” She thought for a moment. Then she said, “I just realized, that doesn’t even hurt anymore. I seem to have gotten past it. I wonder when that happened.”
I just looked at her.
“I’ve tried to understand it all. Not a job for the faint of heart, I can tell you.”
Then I understood. “You’ve been seeing a therapist.”
“I have. Since last spring. Sally’s idea. She thought I needed to look at some of the stuff I’ve been very deliberately not looking at, for a very long time. A tendency she shares, by the way. Sally is much more like me than you or the boys, I’m sorry to say. She spent years determined not to know that she was gay, and then more years determined not to accept it. I think Paula’s the first person she’s really been able to love. I don’t know how much of that I’m responsible for. I hope not all of it.”
“Oh, I’m sure not,” I said. I was really looking at Johanna now. This was a different Johanna.
“I started with someone in Brooklyn, last April, but I just hated it. I would come home afterward and get into bed for hours. But I decided to try again when I got to the island in June. I found a wonderful woman out near Menemsha. So yes. A bit overdue, I would say, but yes.”
I wasn’t sure what form of acknowledgment was appropriate for this kind of revelation. Finally, I settled on: “Good for you.”
“Yes. Good for me. Hopefully not too late for me to enjoy my life and my children.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so!” I paused. “Haven’t you?”
“What?”
“Enjoyed your life,” I said. “And your children.”
“Well, I certainly intended to. I certainly worked hard at it. Things took an unexpected turn, and you know, after that I didn’t think too much about enjoyment.”
“You’re referring to the fact that Dad’s plane crashed into a building?”
“Well, no,” Joanna said. “If I’m being completely honest, I’m referring to the fact that he got on that plane in the first place. The night before he left, he told me he was ending our marriage. The kids were all in pieces. We’d just had a terrible scene down on the beach. Maybe Sally or one of the boys has filled you in on that. Or Rochelle, for that matter. I don’t think any of them really spoke for years afterward, beyond the absolutely necessary. You know what?” she said, suddenly. “I’m going to get rid of these chairs. I hate these chairs. They are so uncomfortable. I want to sit out here and read and look at the beach, and I want nice chairs to sit in.”
I couldn’t think what to say. I certainly agreed about the chairs.
“I know I’m supposed to tell you that he wasn’t leaving you, he was leaving me, but in this case I don’t think that’s actually true. He was leaving both of us. He’d have been leaving all of us if your sister and brothers weren’t technically already gone. The truth is he hadn’t wanted another child. Or at least, another child with me. I’m not sure he’d wanted any children with me. I basically told him, with the older ones: We’re doing this, and he went along. And then with you I did the same thing again. I’d just found out about Stella. I’d just found out they had a child together. I might not have been in my right mind at that particular moment. I’m sorry, I know that’s hardly going to make you feel better about the circumstance of your birth.”